ohmidog!

Steven Clay Romero, the man who dragged a dog named Buddy to his death at the Colorado National Monument, received the maximum sentence of three years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Friday.

Romero, 38, of Grand Junction, will spend three years in federal prison, followed by 12 months of supervised parole for aggravated animal cruelty in the dog’s death Dec. 30, 2009, the Montrose Press reported.

He also was fined $500 and ordered to pay $343 in restitution to Buddy’s owners.

The dog, reported stolen from the back of a pickup truck in Delta, Colorado, was found with a rope tied around his neck at the monument. Surveillance photos and marks in the snow indicated Buddy had been dragged behind a pickup truck while still alive.

Romero’s sister, Melissa Lockhart, 32, is charged as an accessory after the fact to aggravated animal cruelty for allegedly attempting to cover up Buddy’s death. Conviction could bring up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A theft complaint filed against her for stealing the dog was dismissed June 10, court records show.

The torture and killing of Buddy triggered a Facebook site, Demand Justice For Buddy, which as of Friday had 267,713 members.

Susie, an 8-week-old puppy when she was tortured, burned and left to die in Greensboro last summer, yesterday became the first dog to sign a piece of legislation in North Carolina — one aimed at protecting her kind.

Gov. Bev Perdue signed the animal cruelty prevention bill known as Susie’s Law. Susie, a pit bull mix wearing pearls and pink nail polish for the occasion, then put her paw print on the bill.

“Today, we make our homes better and our streets safer for the people who inhabit this state,” said Perdue. “No matter if they have two legs or four legs.”

It was about a year ago when Susie was tortured, set on fire and left for dead in Greensboro. Her ears were singed off and she was covered in maggots by the time she was found, about two weeks after the beating, which left her with missing teeth and a broken jaw, according to the Greensboro News & Record.

Lashawn Whitehead, 21, of Greensboro, was convicted and sentenced to probation.

Susie’s new owner, Donna Lawrence, was one of the forces behind the legislation, wanting to make sure that anyone who tortured a dog in the future would have to pay with jail time.

Under the new law, any malicious abuse, torture, or killing of animals becomes a Class H felony, punishable by up to 10 months in jail.

“This law will also protect, I believe, North Carolina’s people,” said Perdue. “The data is pretty clear. For those of you who don’t know the data, people who are actually cruel and do this kind of stuff to animals, are five times more likely to do this kind of thing to a human being.”

Perdue’s dog’s Dosie and Zipper also looked on as the bill became law.

(Photo: Lynn Hey / Greensboro News & Record)

One year’s probation is all the sentence a judge deemed proper for a woman who threw her 18-month-old dog in the garbage, leading to him almost being crushed in a trash truck.

The dog, named Tommy, has had an extension cord wrapped around his neck since he was a puppy. His owner reportedly wrapped the cord around his neck because he kept breaking lose from his chain. Eventually it became embedded in his skin.

Prosecutors say 34-year-old Tracia Johnson of Cahokia, tossed the dog in the trash because she thought he was dead, according to KSDK in St. Louis. A garbage man found him and he was nursed back to health at Hope Animal Rescue.

Wednesday, Johnson pleaded guilty to misdemeanor animal cruelty and was sentenced to one year probation, 250 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine. Prosecutors had asked for 60 days in jail.

“From my perspective I really would have liked to see her get the sixty days in jail to think about it,” says Jackie Spiker with Hope Animal Rescue. “I just think in order to change the way things are we have to start holding people accountable.”

Tommy made a full recovery and now lives with new owners, who keep a scarf around his neck to hide his scars.

A Maryland man who threw a  teacup Chihuahua off a bridge was sentenced in Frederick, Maryland to four months in jail.

The dog, named Zoey, was never found after the incident and was presumed to have been killed.

David Beers, 35, was sentenced yesterday to  a three-year year term, but the judge suspended all but four months of it and ordered the unemployed cell tower technician to pay a $1,000 fine, perform 300 hours of community service and make restitution of $318 to the dog’s owners, Timothy and Caisha Wantz.

Beers apologized for stealing the dog in a fit of anger after the Wantzes ordered him off their property in rural Jefferson last year, according to the Associated Press. Beers had pulled into their driveway to make a cell phone call.

Beers put the dog in his car and threw it off a bridge and into a creek on the way home. He pleaded guilty to felony animal cruelty.

Almost Heaven Kennel owner Derbe Eckhart will spend six months to nearly two years in prison for animal cruelty.

According to an Associated Press report, Eckhart wept as he was sentenced Tuesday in Lehigh County Court in Pennsylvania.

Eckhart was charged with cruelty after a 2008 raid of his kennel by animal welfare workers and the state Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement.

Prosecutors said animals found at the kennel suffered from severe, painful matting and a variety of skin, eye and upper respiratory ailments.

Eckart was convicted in March on two animal cruelty charges but the jury acquitted him on four other counts.

An email campaign, aimed at ensuring dachshund killer Dudley Ramsay receive a full two-year sentence for fatally bashing his dog against a bathtub, failed to produce the intended result.

Ramsay was sentenced to just four months in prison on Friday by New York Judge Michael Gary.

Ramsay, of Fort Greene, was convicted of aggravated animal cruelty in March for disciplining the 5-month-old dog, named Junior, by smashing him against a bathtub, causing six fractured ribs and damage to the pup’s lungs and liver, according to The Brooklyn Paper. Then he waited several hours before taking the dog to a veterinary hospital, where he died.

Syzmanski

An email campaign was launched after Ramsay’s conviction by Mike Szymanski, of Greenwood Heights, who owns three dachshunds and writes the Dachshund Examiner for Examiner.com.

“This is a tragedy,” said Szymanski, who noted Ramsay had freely admitted by then to killing another dachshund earlier. The sentence, he said, “is a fraction of what Ramsay certainly deserves. It was a slap on the wrist and showed that the judge didn’t care.”

A spokesman for the district attorney’s office said it received over 100 emails from pet owners across the country, demanding that Ramsay gets the maximum sentence. Deputy District Attorney Carol Moran pushed for the maximum sentence, the spokesman said, but the sentencing decision rested with the judge.

“People have to realize that Dachshund lovers can be way more radical than the Tea Party if we find out than an injustice has been done,” Szymanski said. “This is something that could cost this judge his office.”

A former Los Angeles County assistant fire chief was sentenced to 90 days of weekend jail time and 400 hours of community service for beating his neighbor’s dog so severely with a rock that she had to be euthanized.

Animal activists packed a courtroom in Riverside to hear the, which also requires Glynn Johnson, 55,  to take anger management courses and pay the veterinary bills, according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

Johnson , accused of using a 12-pound rock to repeatedly strike a 6-month-old German-shepherd mix named Karley, was convicted in January of animal cruelty.

Johnson claimed he was freeing himself after the puppy clamped its mouth on his hand as he walked her home to his neighbor. Witnesses disputed that and said Johnson attacked the dog without reason.

Johnson apologized to the owners, but said he would appeal the sentence.

Karley’s owners, Jeff and Shelley Toole, said in court that Johnson should get the maximum sentence of more than four years in prison.

“If (Karley) did this to you, her punishment would be death,” Jeff Toole said. “And if I were a judge that would be the punishment for you too, but I’m not a judge. You’re a danger society and you need to be locked up before you hurt someone else.”

Judge J. Thompson Hanks said he considered Johnson’s lack of criminal record and service as a firefighter in the lighter sentence. The judge specified that Johnson’s community service include working with dogs.

“You don’t see this kind of outpouring from the community in many cases, including the death of children,” Hanks said. “As a judge, I have to balance. I have to consider the conduct of the individual who did it and the appropriate punishment.”

An Ohio man will spend five days in jail for abadoning a pregnant dog at a farm in February.

Darryl Lawson, 45, of Hamilton, pleaded guilty yesterday to misdemeanor charges of cruelty to animals and abandoning animals. A judge sentenced him to 90 days in jail, but suspended 85 of the days, the Dayton Daily News reported.

He was also was ordered to pay a $750 fine and serve 40 hours of community service at an animal shelter — even though the judge barred him from having pets in his own household during an additional two years probation.

Lawson’s lawyer said his client  is “very remorseful” for abandoning the beagle mix, who later gave birth to puppies while huddled in some in hay.

Lawson immediately regretted his decision and even went back to the farm in an attempt to find the dog. He then called the sheriff’s office and Animal Friends Humane Society, where the dog and pups were taken by a farmer who found them. He turned himself in to animal shelter authorities.

The mother dog and her five puppies were cared for and are thriving in a foster home.

A Wisconsin man has received a stern lecture and a sentence of six years in prison for cooking his ex-girlfriend’s dog.

A jury found Terry Kleiman of Green Bay guilty of burglary and mistreatment of animals after he broke into his former girlfriend’s apartment and put her 5-month-old Pekingese-poodle mix into an oven set at 350 degrees to get back at her following their break-up.

When the girlfriend, Alex Rouse, arrived home from the Oval Office Gentleman’s Club, where both she and Kleiman worked, she found the dog dead inside the oven, according to the Associated Press.

Kleiman was also ordered to pay Rouse $1,500 in restitution.

“I was almost nauseous when I thought about what you did,” the judge said in pronouncing the sentence. “I can’t imagine what that dog went through.”

A Maryland man who tied his dog outside in a hot July sun, with fatal consequences, was ordered to spend 90 days in jail and do 50 hours of community service.

Judge Janice Rodnick Ambrose suggested Michael Patrick Flemming, 24, of Thurmont, do his community service at the Frederick County Animal Control shelter, the Frederick News-Post reported.

“They may not want you,” Ambrose said Tuesday in District Court. “But I think you should have to work with animals for what you’ve done.”

Convicted of four misdemeanor charges in the July 25, 2009, death of Taurus, a 3-year-old black and brown Rottweiler, Flemming offered a brief statement: “There’s no amount of time you can give me that will erase what I have to deal with every day.”

“‘He was my baby,’”  Flemming said in a two-page handwritten statement. “‘I loved him almost more than anyone in my life.’”

Flemming told the court he’d put his dog out to urinate, went inside and fell asleep. He didn’t mention that he chained the dog to a stake, without  water, an omission the judge pointed out.

“You tied your dog up. That’s why you are here today,” Ambrose said. “Your poor dog is dead because you didn’t love it enough to take care of it.”

A landscaper found the 112-pound dog unconscious in the middle of Flemming’s yard and contacted animal control officers, according to court documents.

Flemming has a sentencing hearing set for next week on fleeing and eluding charges, and another hearing next month on drug charges, according to court documents.